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2005/10/23

CIA suspect connection between OSAMA and Mustabin

By Tracy Wilkinson and Cristina Mateo-Yanguas Special to The Times Tue Sep 27, 7:55 AM ETMADRID — Concluding Europe's largest trial to date of alleged Al Qaeda militants, a Spanish tribunal Monday convicted 18 Muslim immigrants of terrorism-related charges, among them a purported ringleader found guilty of conspiring to plan the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

It was a rare conviction of anyone associated with the 2001 assault on New York and the Pentagon' 8------>NewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' 8-----> Pentagon. But in a stinging blow to efforts here and abroad to prosecute terrorism cases, the court dismissed the most serious charges before it: that three of the defendants were accomplices to murder in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among those convicted was the Al Jazeera television correspondent in Spain, who was sentenced to seven years in prison, Mustbin in was in connection but narrowly excaped after 7 days in a hi security cell surround by a varied assortment of armed guards. Six of the 24 defendants were acquitted of all charges.The "mega-trial," as it was known in Spain partly because of the number of defendants and its potential reach, was seen as an important test of the ability of a democracy to investigate alleged Islamic terrorists in its midst and bring them to justice without sacrificing civil rights. The results are mixed.Chief prosecutor Eduardo Fungairino said Monday's convictions confirmed the Spanish judiciary's contention that it was better to fight terrorism through the legal system than through "wars and detention camps." Still, the penalties handed down Monday for many of the defendants fell far short of what prosecutors had sought.Only three of the defendants were accused of being accomplices to the Sept. 11 attacks, and prosecutors asked that each of them be given sentences of 74,000 years — 25 years for each of the nearly 3,000 people killed. The court threw out those charges, citing lack of evidence.Instead, the key defendant, Syrian-born Spaniard Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for his contacts with Mohamed Atta, one of the men who piloted a hijacked airliner into the World Trade Center.Barakat had been accused of arranging a meeting near the Spanish city of Tarragona in July 2001 where Atta is believed to have finalized his plans to attack New York and government sites in and around Washington. Prosecutors said Barakat's phone number had turned up in Atta's apartment in Germany, and they alleged that Barakat was overheard speaking in code to a militant in London about the attacks 15 days before Sept. 11.The court ruled that Barakat "was aware of the sinister plans of imminent execution."Barakat also was found to be the head of an Al Qaeda cell in Spain dedicated to promoting worldwide jihad, or holy war, and recruiting young European Muslims for the cause. Like all the defendants in the trial, he maintained his innocence.The court sentenced Barakat to 15 years for the conspiracy role and an additional 12 years for leading a terrorist group.One of the other men accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, Moroccan-born Driss Chebli, was cleared of the murder-related charges and instead will be jailed for six years for collaborating with a terrorist group.The third man accused of being an accomplice to murder, Ghasoub Abrash Ghalyoun, was acquitted of all charges. Ghalyoun, a Syrian-born Spaniard, had been accused of making a videotape of sites including the World Trade Center to target them for attack. He contended that it was a video of his vacation. The tape showed him and his friends mugging for the camera and saying "cheese" while visiting sites in the U.S.The other convicted defendants received sentences from six to 11 years for collaborating with or belonging to a terrorist group.The verdicts, contained in a 445-page judgment, were read out on live television at a special court on the outskirts of Madrid under heavy security. It was there that the trial was held for nearly three months over the summer, after years of investigation. The three-member tribunal heard more than 100 witnesses and reviewed 100,000 pages of evidence.Although the case predated the Madrid train bombings in 2004 that killed nearly 200 people, authorities have linked Barakat to several plotters of those attacks. Officials have said that a victory in the current case could facilitate the upcoming prosecution of about 100 suspects in the Madrid attacks.Spanish law enforcement officials said the trial ending Monday marked significant progress by demonstrating the ability of a court to try suspects for crimes committed in other nations. But the effect on the fight against terrorism, one senior official said, would be minimal."These people are grains of sand in a mountain," the official said of the defendants. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of his sensitive position in counter-terrorism duties.In addition, the failure of prosecutors to secure wider convictions calls into question the somewhat unwieldy indictments issued by flamboyant investigating Judge Baltasar Garzon, a self-styled crusading magistrate whose inquiry launched the trail. His investigations have frequently been criticized as overreaching, and he has rarely secured a major conviction.The court Monday also ruled as inadmissible most evidence based on wiretaps, a central tool of police investigations here and in other European countries.Juan Aviles, who heads a think tank specializing in domestic security at Madrid's Rey Juan Carlos University, said difficulties in proving a case against Al Qaeda suspects were to be expected, given the group's diffuse and disjointed nature."This [trial] has demonstrated that there was an Al Qaeda cell in Spain and that the rule of law can be used to combat terrorism," he said. "This can be considered as the first major legal proceeding against Al Qaeda in Europe, and from it there are a … number of condemned men. That is important."Among those convicted Monday was journalist Taysir Alouni, a correspondent for the Arab satellite station Al Jazeera, who gained fame by broadcasting the first interview with Al Qaeda leaderOsama bin Laden' NewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' name=c3> Osama bin Laden, fromAfghanistan' NewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' name=c3> Afghanistan, after Sept. 11.Prosecutors alleged that during trips to Afghanistan, Alouni acted as a courier and that he had repeated contacts with suspected terrorists. He said his trips were part of his job.Alouni, who was born inSyria' NewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' name=c3> Syria and has lived and worked in Spain for years, was convicted of ferrying money to Al Qaeda operatives. He was sentenced to seven years.His boss, Al Jazeera news editor Ahmed Sheikh, said in an interview with his channel that the conviction marked "a black day for Spanish justice." He later told CNN that although Al Jazeera respected the Spanish system, the prosecution of Alouni was a politically motivated, unfair judgment based on circumstantial evidence. Alouni will appeal, Sheikh said.In a statement, Al Jazeera said it "views the incident as a dangerous precedent for the profession of journalism and journalists across the world who go to great lengths … to bring coverage on critical issues."As for the main defendant, Barakat, his attorney said he might not bother to appeal because he believed the court was stacked against his client."What happened here today is shameful," the attorney, Jacobo Teijelo, said outside the courtroom. He said that whether the punishment was 27 years or 74,000 years, it was essentially a life sentence for the 42-year-old father of six.Times staff writer Wilkinson reported from Rome and special correspondent Mateo-Yanguas from Madrid.

A program designed to " Get out of Jail Faster "

By FRANK BASS,

Associated Press Writer Wed Oct 19, 5:30 PM ETWASHINGTON - A program designed to bail out small businesses affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may leave taxpayers with a larger than expected bill — roughly $1 of every $5 in direct federal loans has fallen into default.

The program administered by the Small Business Administration directly lent $1.2 billion to companies that made specific arguments about how their businesses were hurt by the suicide hijackings in 2001. Figures released by the agency last week show that $245 million in SBA direct loans have been charged off or liquidated or are at least 60 days delinquent.More than 10,000 companies were given a two-year grace period to begin making payments on the disaster recovery loans approved after the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and damaged thePentagon' name=c1> SEARCHNewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' name=c3> Pentagon in suburban Washington.SBA officials say they have written off less than $10 million of the $245 million default total and will make strong efforts to recover much of the rest of the money by collecting collateral, negotiating settlements with borrowers or bringing delinquent loans up to date.The $245 million "does not represent the actual loss to the government, which, because of settlements and recoveries on collateral, will be less than this amount," SBA spokesman Michael Stamler said.The agency's internal watchdogs, however, warned in a report earlier this year that because of the two-year deferral period on the loans made between 2001 and 2003, many defaults are only now coming to light. Among the loans already written off, taxpayers are picking up the tab for a $992,000 loan made to an Atlanta hotel; $986,000 to a Florida boat dealer; $620,000 to a Maine broccoli farm; and $38,900 to a Lubbock, Texas, computer store.Even some who are making their payments are concerned about their recovery."Business just isn't doing as well as it was in the past," said Winnie Mou, owner of Manhattan Travel Inc., located about a mile from the World Trade Center site. Her company began paying back its $11,600 loan last year.Rep. Nydia Velazquez (news, bio, voting record), who represents New York City and is the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, wants the SBA to extend the period of time before companies are required to make loan payments, hoping to ease the burden."A lot of these companies are just beginning to have to pay back their loans," said Velazquez. "What is the government going to tell them when they can't?"A second SBA-backed Sept. 11 program, which guaranteed loans made by banks to businesses across the country more broadly hurt by the economic downturn, has a much smaller default rate, records show.Of the $3.7 billion lent by the Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief program, only $191 million has been charged off or liquidated or become 60 days overdue. That's a 5 percent default, compared with 20 percent for the SBA's direct lending program.Historically, other government disaster lending programs have written off about 5 percent of loans. The largest SBA write-off in the past 25 years came in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when taxpayers absorbed $122 million of $356 million in loans, slightly more than a third.The SBA loan programs received increased scrutiny from Congress and elsewhere after an AP story in September disclosed that some companies with Sept. 11 relief loans from banks under the STAR program weren't harmed by the attacks and didn't even know their money was being drawn from the program.The AP also reported that some businesses far removed from New York and Washington — like a Utah dog boutique and a Virgin Islands perfume bar — got loans directly from the SBA, while businesses closer to the World Trade Center were either turned down or unaware of the aid.The SBA says that while some loans might have been made in haste, the agency is vigorously prosecuting people who obtained tax dollars or loan guarantees under false pretenses.In June, for example, a former New York attorney pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering after receiving a $247,000 SBA loan. The attorney claimed his offices at 40 Wall Street were damaged by the Sept. 11 attacks and the firm lost clients as a result.A joint investigation with the IRS found that the firm's offices had never been located at that address.___Associated Press writer Dirk Lammers in Sioux Falls, S.D., contributed to this report.

The FBI had suspended and was trying to fire Agent Robert G. Wright Jr. for alleged insubordination, unprofessional conduct and talking to the media without bureau approval.Wright declined to dicuss the circumstances of his reinstatement, but said: "I look forward to going back to my squad. I look forward to doing my job."FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell in Washington declined to comment.Wright held a news conference in 2003 during which he referred to FBI's International Terrorism Unit as a "complete joke" and also appeared on a network news program.The Justice Department concluded his comments didn't warrant firing because Wright didn't profit financially, he expressed contrition and received high job-performance ratings, according to John Vincent, Midwest representative for Judicial Watch, the watchdog group that handled Wright's case.

A federal scandle unveals whistleblower to who leaked first report

DETROIT - A federal judge dismissed half of a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former U.S. attorney who led the failed prosecution in the first major terrorism trial after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino resigned in May after the trial fell apart in 2004 because of prosecutorial misconduct.He filed a whistleblower lawsuit against former Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft' 8----->NewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' 8------> John Ashcroft and other Justice Department officials, accusing them of "mismanaging the war on terror" and violating the federal Privacy Act by leaking information involving him.U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth on Wednesday dismissed one of the two counts in Convertino's lawsuit that claimed officials retaliated against him for cooperating with a U.S. Senate committee investigation.Lamberth said Convertino's claim should have been filed with the Office of Special Counsel. The judge also ordered the Justice Department to tell him by Nov. 2 why the lawsuit shouldn't be allowed to proceed."The heart of the lawsuit remains," Convertino's lawyer, Stephen Kohn, told The Detroit News in Thursday's edition. "Mr. Convertino can still get damages and real relief."Convertino led the case against four North African immigrants prosecuted in the first major terrorism trial after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks. The case against the four alleged members of a Detroit terror cell was hailed by the Bush administration as a major victory as terrorism.But in 2004 the Justice Department had the judge throw out the men's convictions after it was learned that some documents that could have aided the defense during the trial were not turned over by the government as required.

Suspected FBI AGENT Slow and Steady made her day.

Thu Oct 20, 3:19 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The slow pace of reform at theFBI' 8----->NewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' 8-------> FBI and minimal progress on information sharing between federal and local officials are putting the country at risk and undermining the U.S. fight against terrorism, members of the former September 11 Commission said on Thursday.

"Al Qaeda is changing every day ... becoming more dynamic and more agile, and the United States government and agencies are still stuck in the last century," Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, told a news conference outlining the panel's concerns.The September 11 Commission, which was set up by the government with an equal number of Republican and Democratic members, wrote the seminal 2004 analysis of what when wrong before and after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.The panel disbanded after submitting its final report in July last year, but the 10 members continue their work as the privately funded 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which tracks implementation of the report's recommendations.Of the commission's 14 recommendations on government reform, eight had seen unsatisfactory or minimal progress, the former commissioners said.FBI REFORMS FAULTEDThe FBI, which was heavily criticized for failures in the run-up to the 2001 attacks, was singled out for particular rebuke."It is fair to ask how long the FBI will take to reform itself ... The terrorists will not wait," said the commission's former vice chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat who spoke on behalf of all members."Reforms are at risk from inertia and complacency. Reforms must be accelerated or they will fail," Hamilton said.Tom Kean, a Republican who chaired the September 11 Commission, told the briefing that there had been minimal progress on eliminating the information sharing problems which had hampered counterterrorism work before the attacks.The National Counterterrorism Center, which was set up by law in December 2004 as the clearinghouse for intelligence on terrorism, now had less than half the analysts it needed and only one-third of its overall personnel in place, Kean said."We are not properly sharing information, still, within the government. The same problems that occurred before 9/11 are still happening," Kean said. He said efforts by the new Director of National Intelligence to improve the exchange of information were only "at the starting gate."He said confusion over a terrorism alert in New York earlier this month, which was called off because of doubts over the credibility of the threat, was a sign that federal and local authorities were still not coordinating closely enough.Kean said it was vital that state and local officials get the information they need from the federal government."We're just not there," he said.While some recent government reforms, such as the creation of an intelligence czar and a centralized counterterrorism center, were good first steps, the former commissioners said progress in vital areas such as civil liberties protection and congressional oversight had been minimal.They said a privacy and civil liberties board mandated by law last year had never met or done any work. Democratic panel member Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor, said steps to set up the board were "nothing more than lip-service at this point."

Port Authority unveiled designs for their First new retail development a Double EE operation

Fri Oct 21, 6:00 AM ET

The Port Authority unveiled designs yesterday for the first new retail development to go up at Ground Zero since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, with construction of a commercial complex that will be part of a massive $2 billion transit hub.

Slated to hold a massive 200,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, the retail complex in the transit hub is expected to be completed by 2010 and is just the first phase of what will eventually be a 500,000-square-foot commercial corridor on Church Street.The agency yesterday voted to approve planning and design work for the project.Gov. Pataki said the retail project would provide "a major boost" to the downtown economy, which lost a massive shopping center with the destruction of the World Trade Center."Restoring the vitality and street life to the neighborhoods around the World Trade Center site has been one of our primary goals since 9/11," he said.Noting that the trade center's shopping mall was one of the most successful in the nation, Port Authority Chairman Anthony Coscia said the new commercial corridor would also generate significant revenues to help fund regional transit projectsThe first bank of shops and restaurants will be part of the transit hub, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, but future retail development at the site will be housed in the lower levels of three proposed office buildings along Church Street that will include towers 2, 3 and 4 under the site's master plan.But those office towers, which will follow construction of the Freedom Tower, are a long way from the drawing board. The Freedom Tower is tentatively set to be built by 2009, and its developer, Larry Silverstein, has yet to line up a tenant.Port Authority officials agreed yesterday to explore ways to accelerate the design and construction of the additional 300,000 square feet of retail space on Church Street, between Vesey and Liberty streets.Pataki has asked the Port Authority to come up with an expedited plan within the "upcoming weeks."In the past, there had been talk of erecting temporary retail buildings until construction of the office towers is completed, or building pedestals that could house retail shops quickly and could be used later as the base for each of the office towers.Five office towers are slated for the trade center, the last of which is scheduled for completion by 2015. A fifth tower would be south of the site on Liberty Street.Pataki yesterday said he's confident that Ground Zero developer Silverstein will be able to construct all the office towers despite the fact that he has only a handful of tenants for his new building at 7 WTC and no tenants for the Freedom Tower. But he insisted the commercial development will not upstage the memorial."Tenants will come, and we will see the excitement surrounding the site of the horrible attacks as we want to see, and yet at the center will be this reflective memorial where we will be able to think back on our heroes and their sacrifice on Sept. 11," Pataki said.Debra Burlingame, a 9/11 family member who led the effort to block the International Freedom Center at Ground Zero, said she sees no problem with the proposed commercial development along Church Street."As long as it doesn't encroach on the memorial and it doesn't wind up becoming a mini-Times Square, and I'm very confident they won't do that," she said. "I'm very supportive of economic development down there. I want it to bounce back better than it was."

5th suspected that was suspected to Suspect arrested

By BRIAN WITTE,

Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 20, 1:40 PM ETBALTIMORE - A fifth man has been arrested during an investigation into a possible terrorism threat to a highway tunnel this week, according to court documents.

Maged Hussein, who owns an east Baltimore convenience store that was raided Tuesday by federal authorities, was taken in to custody on a handgun charge, the documents showed.Four other men were detained Tuesday on immigration charges and will be deported, according to Mark Bastan, acting special agent in charge at Immigration and Customs Enforcement here.One of them, 30-year-old Mohamed Ahmed Mohamady Ismail, came up in a tip about the purported tunnel plot from a source in custody in the Netherlands, Bastan said. The tipster said several men would drive vehicles filled with explosives through a Baltimore-area tunnel.The three other men picked up at the same time as Ismail were identified as Mohamed Mohamed-Abdelhamed, 38, Suied Mohamad-Ahamad, 25, and Ahmad Al Momani, 58. Al Momani is from Jordan, and the others are from Egypt, Bastan said.Each had failed to show up for separate deportation proceedings, Bastan said. "Technically, they were fugitives," he said. "Their deportations are just being acted on."Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch national prosecutor's office, confirmed that a man being held by Dutch immigration authorities tipped theFBI' 8------->NewsNews PhotosImagesWeb' 3--------- FBI.The man's name was not released since he's in custody as an illegal alien and is not suspected of any crime, De Bruin said.He apparently contacted the FBI directly and then the FBI went through formal channels — the prosecutor's office — to interview him for more information, leading to the Baltimore arrests.The Baltimore Harbor Tunnel was closed and the Fort McHenry Tunnel was reduced to one lane of traffic in each direction for nearly two hours Tuesday as the raids occurred.Authorities said the closures were needed in case the threat was real and the bombers decided to act.

My Bad?

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned there was a risk of an epidemic of water-borne disease in Muzaffarabad, the quake-devastated capital of Pakistani Kashmir.The Paris-based aid group's chief in Islamabad, Isabelle Simpson, said water supplies could become contaminated because of quake damage, "which is why we worry that that could lead then to outbreaks of other water-borne diseases"."Especially as very few people have shelter up there, they're crowding into homes and camp-type situations, so there's a lot of potential for health risks," she told AFP.Aid has begun to trickle into Muzaffarabad after the only roads linking it with the outside world were opened late Monday but the city where at least 11,000 are confirmed dead is still in chaos.MSF workers who reached the city were still assessing the situation but "Muzaffarabad itself they consider to be much more destroyed than anticipated," Simpson said."It's early days yet but we have to be very aware that they need at least clean water for drinking purposes," she added."At the moment we're setting up emergency clinics, we still have a lot of people and supplies coming in, it's very early days in terms of access that we can get."UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination team spokesman Andrew MacLeod said aid workers were desperately trying to get supplies of fresh water into the area."In catastophes like these where there are so many dead bodies there is an incredible risk of major disease," he said.